Factor this - while America has it's own problems with political insider trading, we at least get to know about it after the fact via public record.
For Putin and his oligarch's, not so much.
Back in 2020, Putin did something weird, for those who recall, he smothered the market in oil supply to get the price of oil down to $12/barrel. It was timed/optimized just after the Covid market crash.
Putin hinted that it was to hurt American refiners, but I say it was far more insidious.
I believe Putin & his oligarch's knew he was going to attack Ukraine back then, likely positioned extremely long option calls or derivatives on energy futures via third parties (like Deutsche bank), after intentionally crashing prices.
If you think futures and derivative traders are required to publicly disclose positions like the regular market, wrong - I refer to the "commodity futures modernization act" created in 1999 which exempts futures and derivatives from regular public disclosure requirements.
The CFTC couldn't even reveal these records to the Pentagon when they investigated the '08 crash and the strange surge in oil to $140+/barrel that triggered the rout back then.
Then, Putin, this year with oil already high, invades Ukraine and takes profits @ $120 oil.
I firmly believe Putin is behind the Nordstream sabotage, It's obvious that Nat gas prices will soar this winter and likely he's positioned long in futures ahead of it.
Everything Putin does is for personal gain, he owns the Russian media and can distort public consensus, referring to any news that challenges him as "fake news" and have them arrested/imprisoned.
We came uncomfortably close to a similar governance ourselves recently.
Putin knows he won't win a war against us with his army, nor even with his Nukes, but....he could win it financially, by crushing Western economies via the allowed secrecy of the futures market and his ability to invoke events that drastically effect commodity/energy prices with massive long or short positions strategically placed ahead of time.
We can continue to waste time insulting each other's politics, while ignoring what he's doing, or, we can wake the F--- up and see what's really happening.
I leave with this -
"We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else"
"...Or anyone else"
Milton Friedman, founder of Libertarianism
Edited by
Mark
on Sun 10/02/22 10:58 AM